Mission: Cavanaugh Baby (11 page)

Shane stuck his hand on the door, catching it before it had a chance to meet the doorframe. He was obviously a lot stronger than the woman, even though they appeared evenly matched when it came to weight. But he did have close to a foot on her.

“How about questions?” he asked her.

The woman blinked, staring contemptuously at him. “What?”

“We’re peddling questions,” Shane repeated. “How would you like to answer some for us?” he persisted.

It was obvious that her answer was no. “Look, I’m busy and I don’t have any time for games—”

This time, as she tried to slam the door, she was prevented not just by the strength of Shane’s hand, but by the shield and ID he held up in front of her.

The sight of both—as well as a second set that Ashley held up—caught the victim’s neighbor off guard. For approximately fifteen seconds. And then she sneered. “You think I don’t know you can get those in every back alley in this town?”

“Actually, you can’t,” Shane contradicted. There’d been a campaign to eliminate fake police IDs, and it had been successful. “We just need you to answer a few questions about your neighbor, Monica Phillips.”

The look of suspicion on the woman’s wrinkled face grew. As did, surprisingly enough, a tone that could only be described as protective. “You trying to pin something on Monica?”

“Why?” Ashley spoke up, snagging the woman’s attention. “What have you heard?”

“I ain’t heard nothin’,” the woman stated. “That poor kid’s got enough to deal with. That no-good boyfriend of hers took off over a month ago, yelling that she was on her own. That the baby she was carrying wasn’t his. All that worthless piece of garbage ever did was get into fights with her. Knocked her around a bit, too, although she never said as much. But you can’t fool me,” she bragged. “I saw the bruises.

“One of the neighbors even called in a cop on them when they got into a really bad one,” she volunteered, contemptuous of the act of being an informant, “but not me. Not me,” she repeated as if saying it twice drove the point home that much more clearly. “You ask me, she’s better off without him.”

In a way, the story was all too familiar, Shane thought. “Not anymore,” he said dryly.

The comment had the woman in the doorway frowning. She looked from the detective to the officer with him. “Why? They get back together?” she asked, her curiosity piqued.

“No, she’s dead,” he replied flatly, watching the woman’s expression.

Her eyes instantly became so huge, they looked as if they were in danger of falling out and rolling away. “Who killed her?” she demanded angrily.

“That’s what we’re trying to find out,” Ashley said before Shane had the opportunity.

“It was that rotten boyfriend, wasn’t it?” the woman demanded. Then, before either of them had a chance to answer her, she became more emphatic. “It was. It was him, I just know it. The minute he took off, she should have done the same—in the opposite direction.”

“Do you think you could describe him to a sketch artist for us?” Shane asked. “It won’t take long,” he promised.

The woman glanced at her watch. “I’ve got a...friend coming over in an hour,” she said. “Maybe tomorrow.”

In his experience, tomorrow wasn’t something that automatically arrived on the heels of today. Half the time, it got all turned around and disappeared. “I think that it might be in everyone’s best interest if you came to the precinct with us—”

But Ashley interrupted. “I can do a sketch here if you prefer,” she told the woman.

Surprise registered on Shane’s face as he looked at her. “You sketch?” he asked incredulously.

Ashley shrugged. It was something that came so naturally to her, she didn’t even think about it. It was just part of who she was. Capturing her surroundings on paper as a kid had given her solace, a sense of unity that she’d needed.

“Decently enough to be able to tell the sketches apart,” she answered.

“In other words, they don’t all come out looking like sickly stick figures?” he offered.

“Not that I know of,” Ashley answered. It was a strange image to pull out of thin air, she couldn’t help thinking. “You have any paper and a pencil lying around?” she asked the woman.

The woman opened the door to them for the first time since they’d rung her doorbell. She beckoned them into her apartment, urging them to “C’mon, c’mon, let’s get this over with.”

* * *

Within fifteen minutes, following the description the woman gave her, a sketch of Monica’s boyfriend and, according to the neighbor, the father of the dead woman’s baby, found its way onto the page.

“Not that he was ever going to do right by her. He was just in it for a good time and the money. Monica had a good heart and a good job. She deserved better.” The neighbor sniffed, her eyes growing teary.

“No argument there,” Shane agreed.

Taking a look at the drawing that his temporary partner had produced, he had to admit he was impressed. “Pretty good,” he told her with an appreciative nod. He had a feeling that if he said anything more effusive, she would simply discount it. The officer, he’d already noted, didn’t take compliments well. “You do this on the side? Sketch, paint, that sort of thing?” he asked.

“Not on the side,” she contradicted. “But I do it. It relaxes me.” She supposed that he would call it a hobby—but it was more than that. Drawing was the gatekeeper to her soul.

He looked down at the sketch again. “Impressive,” he told her.

She wasn’t accustomed to getting compliments and had no idea how to handle the praise, other than with an indifferent, casual shrug.

“Maybe we should circulate this,” she suggested.

He agreed. “And give Brenda a copy of it in case it helps her identify that mystery caller who went into Monica’s apartment and never came out.” He looked at the woman who had given them the description. “Would you know where he lives?”

“Up until a couple of months ago, with her,” she answered flatly.

“Which means, if we’re lucky, the guy’s name is on the lease,” Ashley related out loud. She looked at Shane to see if he agreed.

He did. Shane was grinning. “Maybe you do have a knack for this kind of thing,” he told her.

She tried to look completely indifferent to the words of praise, but the tiny hint of a smile gave her away.

Chapter 10

T
here was a different man in the leasing office this time.

The plastic-looking man glanced up from his desk the moment Shane opened the door and let Ashley enter in front of him. Actually, since the door, as well as the adjacent panels on either side of it, was completely made of glass, allowing for total visibility, the leasing manager, a man in his early thirties, looked up a second
before
the door was fully opened. It was obvious that a movement just outside the door had caught his attention.

By the time the door had shut behind them, the leasing manager had risen from behind his desk and was in the process of swooping down on them, a hawk ready to scoop up unsuspecting prey.

“Good morning,” he said warmly. “This must be your lucky day.”

Just what was this guy up to? Shane wondered. “How so?” he asked.

“Well, according to my computer, an apartment has just gone vacant. You two can get first crack at it since you’re right here. The orientation is just right. Warm in the winter, cool in the summer. You can’t go wrong. And the price is a steal.”

Since they weren’t jumping at the chance to nail down this bargain he was pushing, the man with the shining, slicked-back, overly black hair cocked his head like an attentive bird, studying them. Trying to find a reason they might be dragging their feet.

“Let me guess. This is your first apartment together, right?” he asked.

“It would be,” Ashley attested, “if we were looking to lease one, which we’re not.”

Her answer confused him. “Then why...?” The manager looked from one to the other, waiting to be enlightened by one of them.

“We need to ask you a few questions about the woman who lived in apartment 163,” Shane answered.

The dazzling smile instantly vanished as if it had never existed, and was replaced by an annoyed frown. “You’re with the police.” He said it the way an overly fussy person would have spoken to representatives of the sanitation department.

“Right on the first guess,” Shane stated, as if congratulating the manager. Something in his bones told him that the man was going to be less than cooperative.

The manager, Robert Hughes, had a question of his own. “When are you going to take down that awful-looking yellow tape? The residents are beginning to complain about the inconvenience.”

“Think of the inconvenience Monica Phillips is going through,” Ashley pointed out. Shane noted that she was having trouble hanging on to her temper. He could hear it in the way her voice rose.

“I don’t think that tape is an awful shade of yellow, do you?” Shane asked the woman next to him.

Playing along, Ashley shook her head. “Doesn’t look awful to me,” she replied with sincerity.

Shane turned back toward the leasing manager. “Give it a chance. It’ll grow on you,” he told the pretentious man.

“When are you taking it off?” Hughes demanded again through clenched teeth.

“Well—Robert,” Shane said, reading the man’s name from the nameplate on his desk, “that depends on how quickly we can gather up all the available clues in Monica’s apartment. One of her neighbors told us that until a few weeks ago, there were two people renting that apartment. Monica and the father of her baby. If he was on the lease, we’re going to need all the leasing information you have on him.”

Robert drew himself up to his full height—and still fell several inches shy of Shane. “That information is confidential,” he informed the two representatives of the police department haughtily.

Shane was not about to back off. “We
need
that confidential information to find him so we can ask him a few questions about his ex-girlfriend.”

“You don’t have to keep what you have confidential any longer. It’s not like he’s an undercover spy,” Ashley interjected.

The manager remained unmoved. “Privacy is privacy,” he recited stubbornly.

“We can always come back with a warrant,” Shane told him evenly. It was a threat nonetheless.

Robert crossed his arms defiantly before his chest. “Go ahead,” he challenged. By the expression on his face, it was apparent that the leasing manager was fairly confident that all this would lead to nothing.

“Oh, we will,” Ashley promised, adding, “Just think of all the inconvenience the residents are going to have to suffer through if we have to bring back a squad of police officers to make sure that nothing is tampered with in the apartment until the warrant is issued and then served. Why, it might even be a whole week before that warrant shows up—”

“All right, all right,” the manager cried angrily, throwing up his hands. “I’ll get you that name and any information I have on the other tenant.” He stormed back to his computer and began to type furiously. The keys echoed the staccato beat.

Less than ninety seconds later Hughes had pulled up the requested information and had printed it. Muttering something less than charitable under his breath, he stormed over to the printer and retrieved the page with the contact information on it.

“There!” he declared. “Now will you please leave?” The request was fairly bitten off and heavily laced with sarcasm.

“We will. For now,” Shane told him as he and Ashley started for the door. “Oh, and thanks for your cooperation.”

The door slammed behind them.

Once he and Ashley were outside the office again and on their way back to his vehicle, Shane grinned at her. “Nicely done,” he said. “You really knew how to get under his skin.”

Ashley shrugged off the compliment. “I’ve had practice,” she said drolly.

“Lucky for me,” he commented with a laugh. Unlocking his car, Shane slid into the driver’s seat and leaned over to access the onboard computer. “Let’s see if this guy’s got any outstanding warrants or a criminal history.”

A quick search through the database showed that the man, Jordan Simon, didn’t have either. The next step was to access DMV records to find both Simon’s picture and hopefully his current address—
if
the man had been conscientious enough to update the DMV on his new residence.

Securing that information took a little time as well as patience and, in the end, a little help from Brenda, who wormed her way into a database not readily accessed by the average law-enforcement agent.

“Bingo,” Shane declared happily when the information appeared on the screen before him. Brenda had forwarded the information to his car. “Brenda, if you weren’t already married to my cousin, I’d run off with you and marry you myself.”

“Big talk.” Brenda laughed in response. “Now let me get back to my work. This recording you brought me is just possibly the most worn out, grainiest recording I’ve ever had to work with,” she complained with a sigh.

“Keep trying, Brenda,” he said encouragingly. “You’re the best.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she replied in a weary, singsong voice just before she terminated the transmission.

Ashley glanced at her oversize watch to check on the time. Between questioning tenants, following up leads and checking back with Brenda, they’d been at this for the better part of the day. It was getting late, certainly way past either one of their usual quitting times. She half expected the detective to call it a night.

Shane saw the petite young officer looking at her watch—which he noted was way too big for her. A gift from a former boyfriend? Or maybe someone who was currently in her life?

That was none of his business, he reminded himself. They were working together, not playing together. And as far as working together, it was getting late. As of yet, there’d been no overtime authorized for this case, and he was sure she probably wanted to go home.

“We can call it a night,” he told her.

“You can knock off for the night if you want to,” she countered. “Just drop me off at my car.”

It wasn’t hard for him to read between the lines. “I take it you’re not ready to quit,” he said.

She knew she could pretend to change her mind and say she was going to go home, but Cavanaugh was too smart to be taken in by that. She might as well play it straight and give him an honest answer.

“I thought I’d just see if this so-called ex-boyfriend has been listening to the news, or if he’s the one responsible for
causing
the news.”

In that case, he might as well go with her, Shane thought. He started up the car again. There was something about her tone of voice when she said that that put him on the alert. “You made up your mind about him?” He was asking her a question, but he had a feeling he knew the answer to that.

Ashley replied with another question. “That wouldn’t be very ethical now, would it?”

“I’m not asking about ethical,” Shane said mildly. “I’m asking about you. Are you going to go talk to this guy having already played judge and jury?”

It was hard thinking of Monica’s ex-boyfriend as being innocent until proven guilty, but that was the name of the game: impartiality.

She blew out a breath. “Well, he did walk out on her and the baby, but that could just be a case of responsibility jitters,” she pointed out, knowing she was speculating. “Maybe we should stop by my place and I can take Albert with me,” she suggested with a smile that was way too innocent to be real. “See what he has to say.”

“Now he’s a talking dog?” Shane asked as they drove to the address Brenda had secured for them.

If Ashley heard the amusement in his voice, she pretended not to. She took his mocking question as an opportunity to educate him. “All animals talk to you. You just have to listen.”

It wasn’t a theory he subscribed to, but he let it go for now. All he did was point out the obvious. “The dog just might not like him.”

“If he walked out on my pregnant mistress and made her cry, I wouldn’t be too crazy about him, either,” she said.

“What makes you think she cried over him?” Shane asked, curious where she got her information.

“Easy, his pictures were still up in her apartment. If the breakup was something she orchestrated or was hoping for, or held a grudge against him for, she would have smashed his pictures—or thrown them out. But she displayed them.”

“Okay, you made a believer out of me,” Shane told her with a laugh.

“Take me back to the precinct,” she requested, “so that I can get my car and then—”

“We’ll go see this guy together,” Shane concluded for her.

He wasn’t willing to let her go off on her own, she thought. “Afraid I’ll steal your thunder?” she quipped.

“Afraid you might create thunder if you don’t hear any,” he countered matter-of-factly.

Ashley sat in the passenger seat, silent as she struggled to hang on to her temper. He’d just insulted her. How was she supposed to work with a man who had all but just said she wasn’t trustworthy? “Are you doubting my integrity?”

He looked a little mystified as to how she had arrived at the bizarre conclusion. “More like I’m worried about your enthusiasm to bring this guy down no matter what.”

“I want to bring down whoever it was who killed that poor woman and stole her baby, nothing more, nothing less,” she informed him with feeling. “No matter what you might think of me or my dog catching job, I don’t lie, Detective Cavanaugh. Is that understood?” she asked, watching his face intently.

“Understood,” he finally replied after more than a minute had gone by.

“Okay, then, step on it,” she urged. “Since you obviously don’t trust me to do this on my own, let’s find this guy before he decides to pick up and disappear for good.”

She had a feeling that time was of the essence if they were going to save the baby. She refused to think about the possibility that the infant was dead. Backup had already conducted a thorough search of all the Dumpsters in the area.

“The sooner we get this done,” she told him, “the sooner you can get back to your evening.”

He laughed shortly as he eased to a stop at an intersection. “Nothing much to get back to.”

She found that difficult to believe. The man was, after all, handsome as well as charming. Both attributes were known to attract a swarm of women. He struck her as someone who would want to make the most of that.

“No hot date waiting for you, wondering where you’ve got to?” she asked.

“No date, hot or otherwise,” he told her, easing back on the gas.

She glanced at his profile. She would have thought it would be more rigid than that. The fact that he was alone for the night didn’t seem to bother him at all. Why?

Deciding to be up-front with him, she asked, “Is this where I’m supposed to feel sorry for you?”

“No. But if you want to feel sorry for me—”

Here it comes,
Ashley thought, bracing herself for practically anything.

“You can feel sorry for me because I’ve got a mouthy temporary partner who seems to want to turn every other word between us into a fight.”

She said nothing to begin with, then eventually, she gave in to his assessment. She
had
been a wee bit thin-skinned and touchy. It came from years of being embroiled in actual verbal assaults—sometimes physical ones, as well. As far as partners went, temporary or otherwise, Shane seemed like a pretty good guy. He deserved a chance, she told herself.

“Point taken,” she conceded. “I’m just used to fighting for every single foothold, every step I make. Nothing ever came easy for me.”

And the bitterness shows,
he couldn’t help thinking. Still, pointing it out wasn’t a way to make it go away. It would accomplish just the opposite.

When he was certain she was finished and he wouldn’t be interrupting her, Shane made the argument for his defense.

“I just want you to keep one thing in mind. I have three sisters, none of whom I have
ever
felt superior to for more than an intoxicating moment. The seven of us were raised by parents who taught us to regard one another as equals—no matter how inferior my sisters thought my three brothers and I were,” he added with a grin. “Got it?”

“Got it,” she answered and this time, for some reason, she believed that she did.

* * *

“You think we can make this snappy?” the handsome, boorish young man asked in response to the two badges that were being held up for his perusal in the doorway of his studio apartment. “I have a date with this really hot model, and she does
not
want to be kept waiting—know what I mean?” He directed the last part to Shane. It was accompanied by a self-satisfied smirk.